Alli and I marked our return to Switzerland by enrolling in French lessons at a local school (it's really a business, but since we are learning, I am calling it school. This would explain why I dread Tuesday and Thursday evenings...I never seem to enjoy school. I am always worried I won't have my homework done or something. I guess that's why I have been having so many high school and college flashback dreams lately, or it could be because I discovered Facebook, but who knows?). Now my French is basic, and by basic I mean I can say fish, chicken, house, and ask for a carafe of water at dinner. Aside from that, I am fairly inept despite my tall tales of department store flirtation and taking pictures of tourists (actually, if you ask Alli I am quite good...I think I just have a confidence problem when it comes to speaking in foreign tongues; if I only had a little tongue of fire over my head, perhaps that fear would go away....).
Anyway, we spend an hour and a half twice a week with Georges (that's right, he is just one George but his name is plural. I think it's a French thing because I've learned with most French words you don't pronounce the last letter on most words. They claim it makes the language flow better and sound more poetic, but I think it's just to make it harder for everyone else to learn French) and so far have learned two verbs avoir, (to have) and etre (to be) with all of their conjugations (this is what makes foreign languages tough. Not only do I have to learn how to say the word in another language, I have to learn to say it six different ways depending on who I am talking about...me, you, him, us, you in a formal tone, and them). In English, you just add the pronoun (he, me, she, we, them, us, etc.) and state the verb, in French (or Spanish, Italian, and many others) you state the pronoun, and then you adjust the verb to reflect the pronoun. Not to bore you with the French versions of words, but let me try to equate it to you in English. Instead of saying "She has a duck," you would say "She hase a duck". But if it were "You have a duck," you would say "You ha a duck." Or better yet "We have a duck," would be "We havon a duck." Get the point? Glad I wasted three sentences to over belabor a point? I will move on now (they say the Germans have a word for everything, which is true...but what is even more true is the Spanish/French/Italians/etc. have no less than 50 words for the same verb...which is more annoying if you ask me).
So to get to the point of the utility of my French lessons, I recently learned to ask someone if they have something. This is valuable because it is far easier to make your point when you utilize verbs rather than just repeating a noun ad nausem until the person gives up and throws things at you. The local grocery store is currently selling train tickets at two tickets for the price of one (they are good for any distance of trip as long as it stays in Switzerland). Alli and I decided these would be great for our upcoming ski trip to Zermatt as you have to take a train because Zermatt is car free. A normal ticket would cost around 70 CHF round trip per person, whereas these tickets wound up being 54 CHF round trip per person. I was proud of myself if for no other reason I used no English, received exactly what I asked for, and the clerk had absolutely no clue I wasn't a fluent French speaker (aside from me asking her first if she spoke English, to which she answered no...then affording me the opportunity to wow her with my suave French, which turned into an elaborate dance of trying to determine if I really knew what I was asking for because the tickets came two to a pack, and I was asking for the equivalent of eight one-way tickets. Being the dorky American that I am, I probably would have enough trouble finding one date for a train ride, let alone four). So thanks to Georges (pronounced George) for helping me with my French, I can't wait for my next verbs so I can't move beyond having and being, perhaps then I can add eating, sleeping, and cooking to my repertoire.
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